The Concordia Technology Solutions team is excited to announce the release of texting to Church360° Unite. This exciting new feature allows you to send mass text messages to the members of your church who have opted in to this form of communication. This feature is included free of charge with your current subscription.
How to Embed a Video onto Your Church Website
Videos have become increasingly common on church websites, especially as more churches are recording or livestreaming their services. While the simple option for sharing on your church website may seem to be to upload the video directly to your site, there are a lot of advantages to uploading a video through a 3rd-party website like Facebook or YouTube and then embedding it onto church website. I'll explain why that is and how to do it in this blog post.
New Features: Add Cells and Rows, Change Cell Types
The Church360° Unite team is excited to announce some big changes to the Edit Page experience. Not only has the Rich Text Editor been upgraded, but we are introducing the ability to add rows and cells, as well as the option to switch the type of cells to change the type of content that is displayed.
Improvement: SSL Certificates
Have you ever noticed the small lock icon next to the URL on certain websites? The lock icon indicates that the website is secure because it utilizes an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate.
What is SSL?
According to SSL.com, "SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and it's successor TLS (Transport Layer Security) are methods used to secure and encrypt sensitive information like credit cards, usernames, passwords, and other private data sent over the Internet. Website pages secured with SSL and TLS are those branded with the HTTPS in their URL address."
This has been an important level of security for online form submissions for a number of years, but has also recently started to affect SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for websites, which impacts where in search rankings your website will show up.
New Feature: Social Media Links in Theme Footer
Social media has become an important tool for organizations to reach their audiences, and that is especially true for churches. We are excited to announce the release of a new feature in Church360° Unite that allows you to quickly add links to social media accounts in the footer of your website.
How to Add a Document to Download from Your Church360° Unite Website
Hyperlinking text allows you to create links to other pages in your site, an outside website, a certain spot within a document, a file to download, or an email address. In this article, we’ll go over linking to a file to download and how to make the document open in a new tab.
Creating A Group Calendar Event with an Invitation and Reminder
Automatic invitations and reminders for events can save you a lot of time and help increase attendance. Here is how to set up new events with these.
Keeping Household and Person Profiles Updated in Church360° Unite
Your Church360° Unite website has Household and Person profiles for each member of your church. Here is an overview of these types of profiles and how to edit them.
How to Subscribe to a Feed Page with an RSS Reader
Once a feed page has been created in Church360° Unite, visitors can subscribe to the feed using an RSS reader. Different web browsers work differently, so the process for doing this may vary. In the example below, I use Google Chrome to subscribe to the feed.
Adding People to Church360° Unite
In a few simple steps, you can add new people to your Church360° Unite site, allowing them to view the member directory and setting them up to be users on the site.
Previewing and Selecting Themes in Church360° Unite
With Church360° Unite, it is quick and easy to change the appearance of your church website by selecting a new theme or preset. A theme provides the overall layout of your website. Create your site’s look and feel by choosing from twelve different themes, each with unique features.
Adding and Linking to Groups in Church360° Unite
In Church360° Unite, you can create private pages called Groups, which allow members of your site to interact with each other in online discussions. Within Groups, leaders can post documents, photos, or comments or create events that can only be seen by members who have been given access to the Group.
Adding Pages to Groups in Church360° Unite
The Groups feature in Church360° Unite is a powerful tool that allows you to create a separate site within your site. A group leader can add standard pages like Events, Discussion, and Members to a group, as well as additional unique pages.
Scheduling Posts, Copying Styles, and Copying Pages
We added new features that allow you to schedule blog posts, create new styles from existing styles, and create new pages from existing pages. We hope these improvements will help make your work in Church360° Unite more efficient!
Church360° Unite Basics: Content and Navigation
Welcome to the wonderful world of creating your website using Church360° Unite! Feeling some pressure? Don’t. You can do this. I promise you, with a little guidance you’ll be sailing through and wondering why you ever worried in the first place.
In this series of articles (we’ve dubbed “Unite Basics”) you’ll learn the easiest way to make an attractive website for your church with the least amount of headache.
New Themes and Presets
This week we released two new themes and expanded on the preset options in Church360° Unite. To view these themes and presets, log-in as an admisitrator and click on the Themes tab in the Admin bar.
Church360° Unite Trainings in September
We have a variety of Church360° Unite trainings scheduled in September. Browse our topic selection from the list below and register for trainings that interest you!
Utilizing the Styles Feature
We've implemented Styles to give you even more options for customizing the font styles, colors, and sizes on your site!
Updating Directory Photos
Keeping directory photos up-to-date in Church360° Unite is an important task to help your members connect with one another online. Read this blog post for some different ideas on updating and maintaining these photos for your church.
Managing Your Email Communications with Church360° Unite
Earlier today on our CTS Technology & Your Ministry blog, one of our regular authors, Ann Ciaccio, offered some tips on How to Avoid Being Labeled as Spam. We thought it might be interesting to take some of her main points and apply them to the emailing features in Church360° Unite.
Guide to Email Log Statuses
Since the email log was released in Church360° Unite, we’ve had a few questions about what the log statuses mean. Here’s a quick explanation to guide you!
Multi-Calendar Events
With this latest update to Church360° Unite, you can now include the same event on multiple calendars and, in the case of recurring events, you can now change the name of a specific event instance without affecting the entire series.
Church360° Unite Trainings in March
We have a variety of Church360° Unite trainings scheduled in March. Browse our topic selection from the list below and register for trainings that might interest you!
Unite Redesign
We've redesigned the Admin views in Unite and added Email and Event logs!
Additional Security Feature: SSL Encryption
In the ever-changing world of online security, it’s important to regularly update! Our developers are constantly researching and implementing new features in Church360° Unite to keep your site safe. This update adds an extra layer of protection with SSL.
Edit Mode Improved
We’re updating how you edit your website pages in Church360° Unite this week.
New Help System
This week, we’re rolling out a brand new help system in Church360° Unite called the Information Center.
We’ve Fixed Bugs & Added Features: July Updates
Our developers have been busy! We’ve rolled out new features, improvements, and bug fixes in Church360° Unite thanks to your feedback. Here’s a summary of the updates:
Event Notifications and Reminders
Last month, we introduced a new feature in Church360° Unite that allows you to invite other users to an event. This month, we’re introducing a new feature that will take events another step forward.
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Evites for Easier Event Planning
Evites are a new Church360° Unite feature that allows you to send email invitations after creating an event.
Each invitee will receive an email invitation asking them to RSVP. Once they respond, after selecting “I’m going” or “I might go," they will be added as a participant to that event.
Easily Upload Users with CSV
We’re always listening to our customers’ feedback, and a lot of people have askedk for an easier way to invite people to become users. We will be continually improving that process, but we just added the ability to upload a CSV file that should greatly decrease the time it takes to invite new users. Here’s how it works:
Enhanced Group Settings
Last month, we showed how you can add pages to groups to create a site within a site. Since then, we’ve added the functionality for you to choose exactly who sees what information within each group.
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Adding Pages to Groups
The Groups feature has been in Church360° Unite since its release. We received feedback from churches who said they wanted to be able to add a home page and additional pages to groups, so we’ve added that great new feature.
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Emailing Made Easy
Church360° Unite has a new feature: Mailing Lists! This powerful new utility makes it easy to email any number of recipients right from your default email client. It can be found in the administrator navigation bar next to "Users" and is only accessible to all Church360° Unite site administrators.
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Creating a Strong First Impression on Your Church Website
Statistics show that more than 50 percent of your visitors will never go beyond your homepage. Consider these ideas for creating a homepage that will captivate your audience and encourage them to engage with your website:
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Share More Than Sermons on Your News Feed
When you first sign up for Church360° Unite, one of the default pages that you receive with a site layout template is a feed called "Sermons." Posting your sermons online is a great way to engage your visitors with the Gospel, and a Feed page is the best way to do that. However, Feeds can be used for more than just sermons.
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Website Themes & Preset
With Church360° Unite, it is quick and easy to change the appearance of your church website by using a different theme or selecting a new preset.
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Boost Your "Brand" and Make More Lasting Impressions
Make your church more memorable by establishing or building up your church brand. Having a consistent visual representation of your church across multiple platforms will help make your church and your messaging more memorable and identifiable.
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How to Make Your Website More Attractive for Visitors
Include Staff Photos
Visiting a church for the first time is more uncomfortable when you don’t know anyone who attends. Include up-to-date pictures of the church staff on your site to give potential visitors a friendly face to look for.
Welcome to 2014! Is your website ready?
The beginning of a new year is a great time to review your church website and make sure the content is up-to-date. Here are some specific things you’ll want to review:
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